8m 0PM a,
FESTIVAL
unma- Countess
It would be foolish to knock the high- quality work on the international Festival but, if you want to see world- class dance within spitting distance, you won’t do better than the Yvette Bozsik Compagnie which has returned to the Demarco European Art Foundation with a piece of stunning quality.
Bozsik herself, who was first seen in Edinburgh writhing in a fish tank in a performance that lasted as long as her oxygen supply and who returned last year with a dance interpretation of Sartre’s iluis Bios, is a performer of mesmerlslng poise and control. lier movements range from the meditative to the manic: at her most still she can draw your attention to the smallest of muscle movements, but even at her moments of dervlsh-Iike possession, spinning, sweeping, twirling, she invests her performance with slavish attention to detail.
Set to an unearthly soundtrack, like something picked up by an orbiting satellite, Countess is inspired by the Hungarian vampire Elizabeth Bathory and is full of stark lighting effects, moody silhouettes and rippling shadows. Bozsik and her equally accornpllshed fellow dancer. appear like two Lady Macbeths on a
f particularly neurotic day, all fidgety hand movements, nervous jolts and
; edgy rhythms.
j llarratively it could be clearer,
; despite the blood-drinking, the lesbian ; romance and the love-hate
? relationship with light, which perhaps i explains why the performance doesn’t ; quite build to the peak of intensity it
i should. But that is a minor criticism in i a work that demonstrates the art of
i one of the most inspirational dancers
3 working in Europe today. Don’t miss.
1 (Mark Fisher)
; Countess (Fringe) The Demarco
European Art Foundation (Venue 22)
558 3371, until 27 Aug, 8pm, £5 (£3).
Burying Dad
Jointly written by Fiona Knowles and Bone Munro (who co-wrote Ken Loach’s forthcoming film, Ladybird, Ladybird) Burying Dad is full of the sort of touching, farnillal insights and razohsharp domestic observations that Loach himself translates so well onto celluloid.
The McDongal fanliy have lost lost their father, Davie. Three generations of women - his mother Bessie, his wife isla and his daughter Jeannie ntoorn hint by voicing their recollections and frustrations. Fiona Knowles portrays all three women with comic verve and is skilled at picking out the idiosyncratic details which create real characters. Granny, conservative and forwlddrle, blunes her danghtenln-law for the death. isla
Burying Dad: subterranean patrlaclr
. is weatherworn from years married to E an alcoholic, and Jeannie harbours a 1 guilty secret.
The ln-character spots are spliced with amusing songs and rhymes like ! ‘The Guilt Free Woman’ in which Knowles and Munro celebrate a mother who feeds her children Pot lloodles and falls about drunk in bars.
the Portillos or Lilleys of this world. The nuclear farnlly is shown up as a i dysfunctional unit which celebrates i the matriachal, single mother at its ; centre. An engaging black comedy
i that’s well worth seeing. (Bethan Cole) 5 Burying Dad (Fringe) MsFlts, Diverse
‘ Attractions (Venue 11) 225 8961, until l 27 Aug, 8pm, £4.50 (£2.50).
|
Courtess: dervish-like possession '
Make no mistake, this show is not for
v comrov PAUL rouxmson V
For years the Fringe has been criticised for giving too much house-room to London stand-ups swaggering about town with their metropolitan attitudes. But a new. and equally boring. trend is the endless stream of material by northern comics about moving to
London. Paul Tonkinson does a passable Cockney barrow-boy impersonation. but then so do most people after they‘ve lived in London a couple of years. Far more interesting were a couple of minutes about Manchester's E culture which were left sadly undeveloped. The one flash of real inspiration was his 69 routine (that's
. the sexual position. not
the Woodstock
anniversary incidentally).
. Otherwise. simply not enough original material
to fill an hour. (Eddie Gibb)
I Paul Tonkinson
(Fringe) Gilded Balloon
ll. Stepping Stones
(Venue 51) 225 6520.
until 3 Sept. 8pm. £6 (£5).
V THEATRE ACTRESS
Successful young actress arrives in the cultural desert of smalltown Minnesota, and returns to the family home she abandoned to pursue her career. Mother chirrups pride; father harrumphs : disapproval; brother-in- « law gurgles enthusiasm. But elder sister — a star
actress in high school. now reduced to mundane ; housewifery — pouts silent hostility. For lil' sis is riding into town to play ; her role. Clytemnestra in Iphegeniu.
Written and directed by Josh Lazar. this cliched 3 and predictable study of ' sibling rivalry and artistic jealousy inexplicably won the Connecticut i Playwrights‘ Festival last year. It isn‘t terrible.
Paul Tonkison: miner sixty-niner
though there are some excruciating moments (‘we both know it should be me on that stage tonight'). lt‘sjust terribly
unsubtle. and Lazar‘s
directing cruelly exposes the weaknesses of his writing. There are strong
g performances. but sadly
the result is more iffy than Ip/tegenia. (Andrew Burnet)
I Actress (Fringe) Perestroika Productions.
_ Church Hill Theatre I (Venue 46) 447 0111,
until 3 Sept (not Sun 21
Aug). 8.20pm. £5 (£3.50).
_. v THEATRE
SLEEP OF THE JUST
A soldier goes AWOL to Edinburgh. where he does a trawl of Tollcross‘s less salubrious night spots. Accompanying the soldier on his low-life tour is his sister, who he slept with five years earlier. and whose affairs with other men eventually become too much to bear.
This is a valiant attempt to deal with serious themes. but is overloaded with unnecessary complications. while the location is irrelevant. except maybe as a marketing pitch. With further development the script could work. but at the moment there is too little change in pace and tone. so emotional engagement is limited. and the end result is a feeling of ‘so what?‘ (Neil Cooper)
I Sleep Of The Just (Fringe) Henry Krinkle Theatre Co, Wee Red Theatre (Venue 61) 229 i003. 14—20 Aug. 8.20pm. 21—28 Aug. 5.20pm. £5 (£2).
V COMEDY
.PARRDT
Parrot ruffling a few feathers
Greenock comic Parrot. nominated for both Sony and Perrier awards last year as well as receiving a Writers' Guild award for his work on the Dave Allen series, has put together three, hour-long
'shows of violent vitriol
for this year's Fringe. The comedy trilogy is thematically split into pain, passion and perversion. which also neatly describes the Parrot experience. His is the passionate mocking of the
ieisured classes. the
perverted and twisted Observances on existence. And pain? He'll leave you weak after an hour of solid laughing.
Parrot‘s scalding opinions could have been just a little wearing if it weren‘t for the levels of psychological self abuse, verging on masochism. balancing the show perfecrly. (Rory Weller) I iio More Mr ilice Guy (Fringe) Parrot. Gilded Balloon ll, Stepping Stones (Venue 51) 225 6520. 12 Aug—3 Sept. 8.30pm. £6 (£5).
V COMEDY DOMINIC HOLLAHD’S HAPPY HOUR
Dominic iiolland: nice bloke who tells jokes
Dominic Holland is right. When you watch the ice skating pairs. what you really want to know is if they‘ve shagged. Not a great insight into the human condition maybe. but he has a point.
Since last year‘s Fringe run, which earned Holland the Perrier’s best newcomer award. he has spent a couple of months opening for Eddie lzzard and there’s still an air of someone doing good. solid groundwork. Holland‘s observational style stops well short of lzzard‘s fantastic leaps of imagination, but their starting points are often similar.
Jokes about domestic
.appliances. school and
women's clothes (washing them, not wearing them in Holland's case) are accessible to just about anyone. Very respectable laugh rate and a few flashes of something much better. (Eddie Gibb) I Dornlnic Holland’s Happy Hour (Fringe) Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, until 3 Sept, 8pm. £5/6 (£4.50/5.50).
do The List 19—25 August 1994